Upon Blue Wings
by Katarinea
Summary: Nature is not weak - nor are those who answer her call. Strength and beauty are synonymous in the form of the night elf, and ferocity and grace are eternally present. How, then, shall the world come to know those who have answered the call?
1. Prologue: Forever Lost

Katarinea Startender never quite was a normal night elf; or, at least, what was normal among that race. For humans, it was quite odd to shape wood while it was still growing, or speak to what appeared to be raging animals, but for the kal'dorei, it was merely another part of the day. But even for a night elf, she was odd. The first sign she was strange came when she was barely fifty years old and convinced her aunt's nightsaber to take her for a ride. Most elves could do similar things, but being able to do it so young was abnormal.

The second indication was something that happened not too long after, and this incident definitely alarmed her parents. Lornaren, her father, traveled far in search of new herbs that they might use to better serve the people, and Sirsaeya, her mother, tended the grounds of their farms, along with many other night elves that worked for them. There was a certain way to do things - much of what they grew required special conditions. So they would treat the soil and its surroundings to take on the characteristics they needed it to - druids came in handy, even for farmers! - and grew whatever was meant to grow there. Then the dirt would lay fallow for a little while (only forty or fifty years), and then they would repeat the cycle. So it wasn't at all amiss when Sirsaeya took young Katarinea to a far field shortly before her 327th birthday and let the small elf watch her tend the land.

Sirsaeya went about her business, testing the land to see if it had lain fallow for too long, or not long enough. It was with a sigh she dropped to her knees, one brow lifting as she pressed her fingertips to the ground and shook her head. A quiet murmur touched the air, and she mumbled to herself about how the land had become hard as she began to stand. Her ascent halted abruptly, however, when her ears flickered back towards where she had left Katarinea, and caught the sound of sobs. She spun around and bounded gracefully back towards her daughter, senses on full alert. Was there some sort of animal? Had she hurt herself?

She arrived back at the outcropping of rock where the tiny elf had been left, and what she saw did nothing so much as confuse her. Katarinea was sprawled across the ground, sobbing and scratching at the earth she kneeled upon, pulling up clumps of dirt and throwing them behind her haphazardly. Sirsaeya blinked, stunned, and then dropped to her knees again beside her distraught child. "Kitten, what is it? Are you hurt?" Her head shook and indicated a no, her digging growing ever wilder.

"Are you ill?" Another, more vehement shake of the head as her scratching reached a fevered pitch.

"Is something wrong?"

The slight youth sat up as if something had struck her, twisting to the side and staring at her mother. "Of course something is wrong, Mother! Don't you feel it? Can't you hear the voice? Something's hurting it!" With that, she went back to digging. The hole she had wallowed out was getting deeper and was well on its way to swallowing the tiny form. Sirsaeya sat, stunned beyond all reason and her thoughts racing.

_**Voice? What voice? Kitten. . .are you like Shan'do's brother, driven mad by some strange force?**_But her thoughts were interrupted as the child she loved more than anything else sprang backwards, teeth bared and hissing.

"Look, Mother! That's what's hurting it!" A dirt-covered finger pointed to the hole she had dug, and Sirsaeya looked. What she saw, once again, confused her beyond all reason. There, squirming in the dirt, was a single lostan. Lostan were similar to earthworms in shape and function, although larger, save that they drew far too many nutrients from the soil and returned nothing, leaving the dirt hard. Lostan were notoriously hard to detect, and they could ruin a field for years if nobody knew what was happening.

The sight of the ugly gray thing whipping around in the dirt both disgusted and amazed her, and thoughts went rapid-fire through her mind. _**Lostan? Here? How did they get here? More importantly, **__**how**__** did she know they were here?**_ These were only a few of the figments that flickered across her brain as she took stock of the situation and acted accordingly.

"Very good, my child. You. . .I will talk to you on the way back to the grounds. We need to tell Parasin that there are lostan here." Katarinea began to protest, but her mother held up a stiff hand and the protest subsided quickly. It took Sirsaeya only a moment to find the materials she had dropped and lead the way to the path home. On the way home, she questioned her daughter and puzzled out something of what happened. Kat said that she had been sitting there for a few minutes, and then she began to feel sick in the pit of her stomach. Standing on the ground made it worse and better at the same time, and then she heard a low voice moaning in pain. She had gone in the direction of the voice, and the closer she got, the more her stomach hurt until it was a sharp shooting pain that had her falling to the ground and sobbing. Then she heard the voice again, and realized it came from beneath her, and so she started digging. The whole event had startled and worried her parents. They had never heard of children hearing voices coming from what seemed to be the earth itself, so they told nobody of what happened and fabricated a story to explain how they found the lostan.

Life proceeded from there without any problems for a while, until a third indication of her oddness appeared. Katarinea had just turned two thousand and exited her adolescence when she was sent on an errand to the Irontree Hills north of Ashenvale. She took three other night elves with her, all laborers just as qualified to assess the herbs and fruit that grew there as she was. It was five days' travel on foot to the northern fields, and it was on the fourth day that fate struck like an errant lightning bolt.

Though the land was safe and patrolled by the Sentinels, hidden dangers still lurked in the shadows and corners of the Irontree Hills, and one still had to show caution. Katarinea had always been careful of her surroundings and alert at all times. But this time was different, for various reasons. . .

They had traveled long that day, and decided to make camp early, as they were ahead of schedule. Katarinea took the chance to wander from the clearing and the tents to explore the land, something she had not done often. Wonder and joy and something indecipherable flickered across her face and swirled in the light gold of her eyes as she rambled among towering trees and blooming flowers that curled across the land. Light poured through the leafy canopy over her head and dotted her slight form with spots and streams of pale gold. A serene smile of happiness split her features as she wandered, spotty sunlight flickering across her face.

But she quickly caught the scent of something. . . odd. It smelled like another kal'dorei, but there was a strange twist in the scent, almost as if someone had been turned inside-out. The rusty scent of blood was absent, though. She twisted her head to the side and took another cautious sniff of the air. The odor stung her nose and she wrinkled it in response, all the while wondering what this odd scent was. Her feet padded across the ground, grass crinkling under her toes, as Kat went in the direction that the wind led her to believe the source was.

As she walked, her senses focused on the oddity and drew her forward, leaving her blind to the changes in her surroundings. The trees began to darken and twist closer to the ground, with long scratches marring their bark. The grass stopped whispering under her feet and began to. . .almost crunch, and something darkened the green blades and left marks on the leather soles of her silken boots, with even flowers drooping their heads in misery. The air around her began to whisper with a hint of malice laced in the faint breeze, a taste of anger and betrayal and hate tainting it. But Kat noticed nothing. All her senses were fully focused on following the faint, peculiar scent that had arrested her. She ignored what the trees and plants whispered in her air and gave no heed to the absence of the animals she loved so much.

Finally, the scent became strong, and she stopped to look at where she was. It was with horror that she saw the trees that had twisted as if they were screaming and the grass that drooped with a crusty brown color. It was with even greater disgust and terror that she looked upon the ruins of some night elven house temple that was dripping in bright red, the same crusty brown that tainted the grass. She inhaled sharply, and gagged on the breath that she took, for it was tinged with the rust that meant blood and the same stinging scent overwhelmed her. She whipped around to leave and ran into something behind her, something that sent her stumbling back several steps, coughing violently.

After her coughing subsided, she looked up, dreading what she was to see. . .and quite rightfully so. Before her stood an animal, no, a monster - it towered over her, and was covered in fur. It walked on cleft hooves stained dark brown and the fur it wore was splattered liberally with dry animal blood. Huge, malicious white eyes leered at her from under wicked horns set atop a face that was almost night elven. . . . Katarinea was young and inexperienced, but she was no fool. "S-satyr." She hissed, backing up almost to the shrine, shivering and holding her breath as best she could.

"Yes, satyr. And now, little one, I have pretty blue blood on my altar!" The satyr spoke in broken Kal'dorei and then let loose a mad cackle, a sound that chilled her bones and made her heart jump high into her throat. He grinned with teeth that were far too white in his dark red face, and lunged forward, long claws reaching for her throat.

Her scream, long and loud and piercing, split the air. It carried back to the camp where the other three laborers prepared dinner, and they froze in place to turn towards the sound. They knew the voice that split the air, had known it since it began to babble tiny sounds that made them smile. So they streaked from the camp. And then, the scream was not cut off, but muffled. A cracking and groaning filled the air. They fairly flew over the ground towards the sound that shrilled through their ears and put fear in their hearts. Then quiet filled the air. There were no screams, no cracks, no groans; only a terrifying silence. But the sound had lasted long enough for them to pinpoint her location, and they raced through the trees.

And so they burst into the sinister clearing where Kat had found herself trapped by the only thing that most night elves feared, one of the only reasons that the Sentinels fought. A quick glance scoured the clearing, and found everything there, and found her, her tiny body folded up and limbs tucked tight as she lay in a huddle between the blood-temple and the ground. But despite being the reason for their desperate flight, she was not what caught their attention. What caught their attention was the pillar of wood standing in front of her, leaning forward as if to grab the young kal'dorei. But it was not merely a pillar of wood. It was a satyr, and what made him appear as if he were a pillar. . .

Roots curled around his limbs, around his torso, and they seemed to have clutched him tight and squeezed the life from him. His mouth hung upon and his eyes bulged with what had to be fear and wonder. The ground around him was opened, gaping holes surrounding him that the roots had burst from before they wrapped him tight and crushed the corrupted life from his body. And then, they noticed the grass around Kat. All the grass within a large radius was green and living, flowers budding as if someone had grown them with magic, and even the base of the blood-temple was the clean white-green of the marble that elves made shrines from instead of the stained red color it had been.

They quickly bundled her up and went back to the camp. They didn't let her out of their sight once that night, or the next day. They only relinquished her when their journey was completed, and they told the overseer of the northern lands what had happened. He reacted just as they, and quickly took her to the best house there and pampered her with every luxury they had while he sent for a hippogryph. It took a day to get there, and she was summarily loaded on and sent back to her parents with one of the other laborers and a letter that explained what had happened. Sirsaeya and Lornaren actually panicked when the situation was explained, and turned such a pale purple they resembled la'vindre. It didn't take long for them to decide that she was gifted with some kind of nature magicks. So the worried parents took her to the Sentinels, to the second-in-command herself, Shandris Feathermoon. Shandris listened to an abridged version of their worries, and told them that the Sentinels would gladly take her in. It only took a hundred years for Kat to be initiated, and then she spent a very long time in training.

She was no good with a bow - the first time she tried one, she nearly shot out her instructor's eye. After the thirteenth year in a row with more injuries than there had been in centuries, the leaders shook their heads and transferred her to the huntress division. There, she had marginally more success. She was much better with a glaive than she was with a bow, and her skill in weaving the nature magic that they used to enhance their weapons was unparallelled.

When the thousand-year mark that ended the training of most huntresses came, she was a lean, wary young elf that had the closest bond with her hunting saber that most of the leaders had ever seen. She asked to patrol the Irontree Hills, and she roamed the green swells for nigh on a thousand years and mercilessly hunted the satyr that haunted the corners of the lush land. When she was finally reassigned, she was assigned to the shattered, sundered wastes of Azshara after a reprieve of a hundred and fifty years. It only took two hundred years for her to grow tired of the place and ask to go somewhere else. So she went to the Stonetalon Mountains, where wild animals roamed the rocky crags and dryads lived in the mountaintops.

It was there she met someone who she became fast friends with. Natasya Skywolf was a young Sentinel, not long out of training, and viciously talented with both moonglaive and bow. She was a prodigy, only spending seven hundred and fifty of the normal thousand years in training before she was considered ready to become a real Sentinel. And even if she hadn't been a prodigy, she would have been a rarity. . .for she was a twin. Twins were in short supply, with only twelve sets being born in the last ten millenia. It was incredibly hard on the mother of the children, and the mother usually ended up dying as they gave birth, or simply fading away because the babes had sapped their strength. But Natasya did not let the lack of a mother bother her - she was a beautiful elf, in every way imaginable. Her spirit was kind and robust, and her smile always present and joyful, her air serene and her blade always ready. Her face was lovely, slashed through with markings like war glaives, wide white eyes set above full purple lips and haloed by a short bob of snowy hair.

Katarinea considered herself slightly pretty, but nothing like the obvious beauty that Natasya had been blessed. The odd Sentinel often stared at herself in the mirror, looking for the prettiness that escaped her sight. Natasya insisted that Kat was pretty, too, but she found nothing in herself. Dark blue hair that had trouble in the high winds of the mountains was always pulled back in a tie, and the twin 'blades' that cut through the pale purple of her face was nothing like the beauty of Natasya's hair, or her markings. Neither was her mouth dark and well formed - it was wide and curved, yes, but the color matched her skin, and they had no swell to them like those of the other elf. The one thing she did take pride in was her nose. She thought she had a very nice nose, thin and long with a little tilt at the end. Yes, she was quite proud of that nose. But it didn't matter that she saw very little in herself. Elune had her reasons for not making her pretty. . .

Natasya and Kat became friends quickly, and they were nigh inseparable. The only time they were apart was when they were assigned a stretch with someone else, or when they had one of their 'disagreements'. These disagreements became somewhat infamous among the other Sentinels that haunted Stonetalon, because they were often utterly idiotic. One of them would disagree with the other on some small point, and then one of them (usually Kat) would have a temper flare-up and yell at the other. They would walk away and not talk to each other for some amount of time - the longest to date was three months, because Natasya had insulted Kat's favorite drink. The two stayed in Stonetalon for four hundred and fifty years, and then they took a small hundred-year break to spend time with their families. Natasya still had her father, and her twin, Dimitria. Dimitria was in training to be a Sentinel as well, but she had started later than Natasya, and she was having a harder time learning the various instruments that Sentinels used.

Kat went back to her parents, who were elated with how she had turned out. They were disappointed, as well, because she had not been able to work with them in the family business, but they were happy that she was a well-adjusted Sentinel (who didn't have random outbursts of magic, her mind whispered). Once their break was over, the two young elves asked to be assigned to Mount Hyjal, for the satyrs were always gathering small armies and charging the bases scattered around the bottom of the mountain in their thirst for magic. There they stayed happily for four hundred and twenty-three happy years, slaughtering satyrs mercilessly and laughing with each other and the other Sentinels.

And then the Legion came. There was a commotion in Ashenvale, and then Tyrande came to the Barrow Dens in Moonglade to awaken Malfurion and the other druids. All Sentinels were put on high alert, and it didn't take long for waves of demons to begin attacking the various bases set around the mount. They fought them off, and then suddenly, there was a scrambling of forces, a reassignment for most of them. Nat and Kat found themselves in the camp at the foot of the World Tree. The magic that flowed from the tree and the Well of Eternity nearly overwhelmed Kat, who lay in bed with a mild fever for a few days, tossing and mumbling things that made no sense. But she got better quickly, and then she was up and about, something burning in the faint yellow of her eyes. Then the Legion attacked, and they brought with them something that made every night elf there sick.

Corpses shambled towards the gate of their camp, rotting and putrid and polluting the ground they stepped on. Kat began to vomit regularly, but she would not leave her post for anything. She stayed there as the gates shuddered and fell, and she stayed there as the abominations rushed into the camp. Her moonglaive glowed with magic as she fought, coating the blade in a thin sheen of green. Every time she sliced into a demon or one of the walking dead, they howled in pain and their body began to corrode where she had cut them. The more overwhelmed the camp became, the harder she fought. She did not stop when Tyrande called a retreat. She retreated, but she stayed at the front of the retreat and warred savagely with their pursuers. Even when one of the demons finally slipped a cursed blade past her nearly impeccable guard, she still struggled, pale blue blood running down her side like water. Finally, she blacked out.

When she woke, it was to a very different world. She was in one of Elune's many temples, and she felt. . . an odd sort of hollow, as if her mind bent from its shape and her body withered. She laid in her bed, tears sliding down her face for no reason for quite some time. When one of the busy priestesses came to see how she was doing, Kat found out what had happened. The World Tree was dead, along with thousands of wisps, to stop Archimonde. The casualties among the night elves were severe, and it was a wonder that she had survived, they said. She had lost so much blood when she finally collapsed that it was a quite iffy proposition to say she would survive. Once she was finally healed enough to leave, she went first to the leader of her division and asked where Natasya was. The answer chilled her bones. "Presumed dead. No body found, but no trace of her anywhere."

She went home to her parents, heart heavy and body fatigued, completely alone - her beloved saber had given his life for his master at the last. And then - she reached home, and she found the beautiful stone house that she had grown up in devastated, laying in ruins. She went wild and raced to Raynewood Retreat to ask what had happened, and found her mother. Her mother sobbed as she told the story. Demons had overwhelmed part of Ashenvale, they had come to their house on their way to Hyjal, and Lornaren had given his life so that Sirsaeya could escape. He had worked the little magic he had learned from the druids that he worked with, and that had been enough to give the Legion-spawn a moment's pause to kill him. Kat was devastated and disillusioned. Where had the world that she worked so hard to save from the foul satyr gone? Her home and family was in ruins, and the only person that had tried to understand her was gone with the dead wind that had swept over Hyjal and befouled it.

Lethargic and lost, she blindly helped her mother pack and leave. They rambled through the Irontree Hills - or what had once been the Irontree Hills. This, too, had been horribly befouled. Green ooze dripped from every branch, leaf, and flower. The water was not fit to drink because of the demon essence that polluted it. It was no longer the lush land she had roamed for a thousand years, but a fel wood that exuded malice and hate just like the demons that caused it. They traveled north to the Moonglade, and had trouble they had never had before. Some of the furbolgs had been driven mad, and it was only Kat's long years of experience as a Sentinel that hardened her enough to kill the creatures that had previously been so loving and welcoming.

They passed through the tunnels that held the Timbermaw, for these furbolg were not yet mad, but said bear-men warned them that it was only by virtue of their long aquaintance that they were allowed to pass. Finally they made it to Moonglade, and Sirsaeya drew on her vast assets to purchase a small house near the town of Nighthaven. And a haven it was to the broken Startenders. Kat stayed there, rambling across the green lands that held no taint of corruption, that gave her hope for the future, for a full year. Her mind had been ravaged by what had happened, and she was hard pressed to reconcile the two lives that she lived - life before Hyjal, and life after.

And then, one day, things changed again. Kat went into town to hire a hippogryph for her mother to travel to Astranaar so that she could continue to maintain her business. She was absent-minded and her thoughts often wandered, but she was well enough in mind to do small errands. There was a hubbub in the quiet town that she had never seen before, and she asked one of the wardens what was going on. The answer took her breath away. "Shan'do is sleeping again, and Archdruid Staghelm has just announced several things. He has begun to grow another Tree, and women will now be allowed to train as druids!" Stunned beyond belief, she thanked him and went about her business in a daze even greater than usual. Women as druids? Shan'do had, for whatever reason, never allowed women to train in the druidic arts. She did not know why, and had never questioned it. Kat wandered back home and curtly informed her mother that "your stupid bird is waiting".

Kat sat outside for days, barely moving a muscle to eat. When she finally stirred, her mind was clear of most of the haze that had fogged it ever since she woke up in the temple, and focused on a single purpose. She was going to leave the Sentinels, much though she hated it, and she was going to train as a druid. When her mother returned, she was informed, and then Kat left her protesting mother behind. She went to the leader of Nighthaven, Rabine Saturna, and asked him where to go to become a druid-in-training. Darkshore, he said, and she went, and was troubled when she arrived. Thousands of young women huddled in shoddy tents around the edges of the clearing, and she was left wondering if these elves had ever killed, had ever ripped out a satyr's throat or been painted in the blood of animals driven mad - and then she shook her head. She was not a Sentinel any longer. She was to be a druid!

Over the long days that followed, the numbers dwindled. The shoddy tents disappeared. When it came her turn to talk to the people initiating new druids into the Cenarion Circle, she found out why. There was a series of tests to determine her aptitude with nature magics, and most of the women had failed them horribly. The testing panel gave her a look that said she would be no different, a look that made her wonder if they thought she was a vagabond.

The first test was to speak with a young bird that one of the druids had tamed as a pet. Not only did she talk to the bird, the bird flew onto her shoulder and snuggled into the ratty tail of hair that hung from her head, shocking its owner incredibly, for the bird was not friendly.

The second test - what most of the women had failed - was just as easy. She had to make a closed bud bloom. One look at the bud told her that the bud was dead, and then she asked them for water. Eyebrows raised, they gave it to her, and she watered the soil that the tiny flower was in. Then she curled her fingers around the limp stem and the bud came to life, flowering beautifully and showing off its bloom proudly. Her testers could do nothing but stare at the once-dead plant. When she asked them why they had given her a dead plant, the man in charge told her that anyone with druidic magic would be able to tell that the bud was dead and say so right out. Many of the women had simpered and tried vainly to cause it to bloom. There were more tests, but they were all as ridiculously easy as the first two. It didn't take long before they gave her a badge with her name and the Cenarion Circle insignia inscribed on the leafy green cloth.

The night she recieved her badge, she went back to the room that she had rented in Auberdine from a kind retired priestess and locked the door. She went to the body-length looking glass and stripped the clothes from her body viciously. And then she stood and stared at herself for a very long time, carefully appraising everything. Her face was not as joyful and round as it had once been, and her eyes glowed a darker yellow. Her hair was tied back in what was almost one big knot, and she suddenly understood why the testing panel had looked at her so. The hair that had once been a silky, flowing sapphire waterfall over her shoulders was now a tangled nest of dry, grimy hair. So she ripped the dirty leather tie from her hair and let it attempt to cascade over her shoulders as it once did. When it utterly failed and clouded around her head in tangles, she sighed and closed her eyes for a moment before opening them and inspecting her body. Kat had never been particularly large, but her years with the Sentinels had replaced much of the loose weight with tight bands of muscle, and the strenuous exercise had made her taller somehow.

But since the - since Hyjal, she had neglected her training, along with eating and washing, and what she saw made her wonder what she had been thinking.

Dust coated almost every inch of her body, save for the scar from the undead blade. She had been careful to keep it clean and rub it with medication every day, for if she did not, then she would not be able to fight because the scar tissue would knot up and hinder her swing. Her ribs were visible, pressing against her skin in a way that pulled the purple flesh tight over her stomach and made the scar all the more visible. It was a very large scar, traveling from the top of her left arm, across her right breast and just beneath her left one to just a few inches high to the left of her bellybutton. The flesh was swollen and shiny, as most scars are, and combined with the dirt that begrimed her ribs and skin, she looked a fright. If someone had seen her, they would have seen her as all bones, skin, and sadness.

Staring into the mirror, her mind whirled around the recent events, and then she turned from the looking-glass. Long fingers removed the last bits of cloth on her body (the wrappings that no good female fighter went without) and dropped them out the window. Kat took the washrag that lay beside the bowl of clean water in the corner and wet it, carefully wiping away the worst of the dirt before she put on the clean blue washrobe that her hostess had lent her. Then she swept out of the house and went to the hot water springhouse that kept the villagers clean. It was deserted, and it was with some measure of happiness that she dropped the robe, letting it slide off her shoulders and into the floor as she walked towards the water.

Kat entered the water quietly, the long years of bathing in hostile territory showing by the way she slithered into the hot liquid. She spent several minutes with her head underwater, swimming around the pool and letting the water take away the bulk of the filth that she was covered in. Then she surfaced and swam to one corner of the room, where tall vases and squat pots stood, and she bathed herself properly. Lustfruit oil coated her hair and _arunel_ soap cleansed her body. When she stood from the warm water, she was a different elf than the one that entered. Smooth, wet hair lay across her shoulders, dripping water down clean purple skin. She left and went back to her room, where she borrowed a proper hairbrush (she didn't own one any longer, the last one was in the ruins of the Hyjal base camp) and returned the washrobe. And then she sat in the moonlight, brushing her hair and letting the luminescent light pearl across her bare skin for hours.

When she traveled (ironically enough) back to Moonglade for her basic training, she found that it would not take nearly as long as it had in the past. Archdruid Staghelm had sped up the training cycles - if one had ability, they were rushed through and taught the basic spells and techniques they needed to master druidic magic and then sent to some area to prove themselves and grow stronger. So she learned, and she excelled. After the first time she dueled another one of the trainees and sent them to the healers, she was prohibited from fighting anyone but one of the trainers. When she learned how to channel magic in a healing spell, the trainer she was practicing it on staggered around for the rest of the day in a state of euphoria. The spell had been so strong that it had overloaded his senses and put him in a state of health he hadn't been in for three thousand years.

The longer she spent training, the higher her teachers' eyebrows rose. She excelled at everything she was taught, and she learned quickly, even picking up not just the rudiments of the Common language that the new alliance of races used, but nearly mastering it. It only took her three years (instead of the prescribed five) to learn all of the basics of what they had to teach her, and then her trainers had a meeting. After the meeting, Mathrengyl Bearwalker flew in from the new World Tree and sought her out. He found her tucked into a tiny ball, curled up between two trees and a cascade of flowers. Her eyes were distant, and he had to clear his throat several times before she noticed him, and then she sprang up and bowed low. "Mathrengyl. How fares the new World Tree? I have heard that odd shadows lurk among the leaves and roots."

He raised an eyebrow. Very few outside of the top tier of the Cenarion Circle knew of the corruption that tainted the leafy boughs of Teldrassil, and for the most part it was only the druids who lived there that knew. "Katarinea. Teldrassil fares well, but. . .that is for another time. I was informed that you have learned all that you are permitted to learn at this time, and the other druids summoned me. You shall be returning to Teldrassil with me. " Her eyes rounded and he found himself hard pressed not to smile at the shock her yellow eyes showed. "The Circle needs someone to cull some of the. . .more physical dangers that have beset the citizens of the Tree, and you are the only one who is ready. Many of the older druids are swamped with dangers of a political sort, and the rest slumber in the Dream. The Sentinels are stretched thin defending elsewhere. Are you willing?" Her mouth dropped open, and the older elf snickered under his breath. Then she answered, her voice breathy and her hands flying in the air.

"I - you - of course I am willing! I have been -" she paused, glanced around, and coughed delicately. "Training is rather boring after two thousand years of war. I am ready." Another bow, and then a smile that had Mathrengyl nearly sputtering, for it stretched across her face and turned the serious, plain face into something beautiful. "I will pack immediately so that you may return to your business with all haste." And then she bounded away, rangy legs giving her long strides that barely touched the ground, sapphire hair flowing behind her. The druid she left behind smiled at the waving grass that indicated where she had been, and let the thoughts in his brain have free range. _**So it would seem that at least some of the people that survived Hyjal have healed. She may be scarred, but she is whole. It is well.**_ Then he, too, turned, and made his way back to Nighthaven to wait for the tiny speck of hope that had fluttered in on blue wings


	2. 1: Sorrow for the Day

_Until further notice, Darnassian will not be italicized until she begins speaking common._

_**~-~-startender-~-~**_

Leaves swirled down from the trees slowly, decorating the ground with huge purplish-green splotches and landing on the roof of the large, carved tree that sprouted from the ground. Tiny houses jutted from the branches, and lengthy shadows moved up and down the walkway that spiraled up the side of the tree. Beneath the roof embedded into the bottom of the tree, several people - women - stood, paying attention to a tall, amethyst-skinned man. The man was speaking in a quiet, deep voice that carried through the still air, but his words were indistinct unless one was close. Otherwise, all that could be heard was a pleasant rumble. The three women ranged about him listened intently to his words - ". . .I am sure. Sentinels, you need not worry about many of the more trivial or. . .interesting dangers that plague Shadowglen for now. Katarinea is well-trained, and she has been brought here expressly for the purpose of dealing with these problems."

The tall, limber woman with green hair that wore a huge glaive on her side nodded. "I thank you, druid Bearwalker. I remember Katarinea from her days as a Sentinel, and if she is half as dedicated a druid as she was a Sentinel, then we shall be safe from all dangers that may beset us, short of the return of the eredar." There was something wry and sarcastic about the tone of her voice, and yet, something that was serious about it. The other women that stood there noticed, and one raised an eyebrow at the other. The one closest to Mathrengyl Bearwalker just shrugged quietly, yellow eyes flickering over the landscape.

"Indeed, you shall." Mathrengyl glanced at the sky and half-turned. "I must be going. I have been away from Darnassus for. . . far too long. Katarinea, I leave you with my trust. May Elune bless you all." With those parting words, he began to walk away, his tall form quickly slipping into the shadows. Once he was completely invisible, the leader of the Shadowglen Sentinels turned to Kat.

"You are welcome here, druid Startender, for I remember you as a Sentinel. You were brave and valiant, and I have heard that you were at Hyjal. Thank you for your service." She motioned to the inside of the massive tree, and they began walking, Kat falling into formation out of habit.

"Thank you, Sentinel Elyrss. I appreciate your thanks, but it was only my duty. I would do the same again if called, despite what it cost me." Kat murmured, eyes flickering here and there as they walked. "You need not stand on ceremony with me. I am not of rank among the druids, and even if I were, there would be no need." As they entered the gently lit interior of the tree, she smiled gently, unnoticed by the other two as memories swirled through her mind.

The third woman spoke up, white hair bouncing along with her short steps. "So, were you really at Hyjal? There are a lot of people claiming they were there and they weren't. Not trying to trivialize your claim, just. . .wondering." Her head twisted to the side, glancing at Kat.

"I was really there. If you would like proof -" her speech and movement halted, and a quick gesture brought the undershirt she wore down a handspan. Part of the long, gnarled, but faded scar that she had brought home with her from the battle came into view, and the young Sentinel gasped as it was revealed. Kat held her hand in position for a moment, and then moved it, letting the shirt fall back. "It was a hard fight." Then she became silent and her gaze was faintly distant, recalling things that most people would scream at the thought of, let alone the experience.

Sentinel Elyrss gave her younger protégé a warning glance that said several things, all along the lines of, _Be silent, you young idiot_. Then they all walked, the air around them still and disturbed only by the gentle music of the wisps that inhabited the huge tree. It only took a few moments of a brisk walk to reach the back of the tree, where Elyrss opened a thin door in the wood and motioned inside. "Your room, druid Startender. The kitchens are open at all hours and the hours of meals are posted on the placard outside. Welcome to the Shadowglen barracks, ma'am." She bowed and smiled a polite, sterile, but entirely genuine smile. "The streams are always open, but there are designated places for bathing if you desire. Just ask any of the guards for their location."

"Again, I thank you, sentinel. And please, just call me Kat. I am no one of note, and have no military rank any longer." Kat bowed back to her guides, a similar smile curling her lips, quite genuine in nature and warmth, but lacking something necessary to make it a real smile. "I suppose I need to dismiss you. . .You are dismissed, sentinels. Elune bless." She saluted them in the Sentinel form, and turned into the small room, closing the little door after her.

A quick scan of the room brought another small smile to her lips - it was furnished much like many of the rooms she had stayed in as a Sentinel. There was a small, comfortable bed, a functional dresser with a bowl of _li'dor_ on top, a little desk, and a pitcher and bowl with water. A couple of steps brought her close to the _li'dor_ - it was a bowl of scented water with scented candles floating in it to perfume a room. A sentinel's room often stank of sweat, blood, and tiredness, so they always perfumed them as best they could. Even now, as she drew in a breath of the gentle fragrance, she could smell the underlying scents that brought her mind back to the years she had spent as a Sentinel. She closed her eyes and drew in a long, deep breath to steady herself, for the familiar scent brought back the cling and clash of blades, the memory of long days spent guarding with Natasya.

She shook her head and came back to the present day. A gentle tap at the door touched her ears, and she turned around to open the door again. A different Sentinel with long white hair caught in a high tail stood there with a large bag, mostly empty. "Druid Startender, here are the things that Druid Bearwalker said to supply you with. It is not much, but hopefully it will do."

Thank you, Sentinel. Elune bless." Kat took the bag and they bowed to each other before the door shut quietly. She walked over to the low bed and sat down, curling her legs beneath her and opening the leather satchel. Inside were just a few things - a box partially filled with delicious Darnassian bleu, a new delicacy that had taken the market by storm; a few skins of refreshing spring water to help her recover after exerting herself, and. . . The pack resembled one she had carried when she was a Sentinel, out to patrol, except this one was not the well-worn and loved satchel she was used to, with runes painted onto the closing strap that read something along the lines of "Katarinea and Natasya – Friends and Sentinels Forever!"

At the thought of the moment when they had painted those runes, she drew in a sharp breath and settled her gaze on the last item in the pack. It was a round, white stone with unfamiliar runes carved in a spiral that began in the center; each rune was filled with blue ink that she knew from experience would never run or fade. It had been specially adapted for the Sentinels, who often had trouble with writing things down with normal ink and having them be legible afterwards. Magical scholars had soon begun using it for their runes to keep them from smearing and messing up spells, and she assumed that's what had happened with this. She frowned and reached into the pack to pull it out, and her fingers brought paper with it. It was a note from Mathrengyl, and she quickly placed the stone aside and busied herself with the note.

_Katarinea,_

_I trust you will receive this pack soon. This stone is a "hearthstone" - it's a new form of magic shown to us by the humans. It will return you to whatever point you choose, provided you set the point magically. The only people who are trained in setting these points are innkeepers, at least at the moment. There is a period where you have to wait for the teleportation magics to recharge, but around once an hour you should be able to use it. In order to use it, place your fingers on the runes and speak the runes. The rune sequence is listed below, and by default the stone is set to return you to the shadowy glen you are in now. _

_May Elune guide your steps, young druid._

_Mathrengyl Bearwalker_

She read over the runes and recognized them – they were part of a set of common human runes that she had briefly studied while in Moonglade. How she hadn't immediately recognized them, she didn't know. Natasya would have, a thought ran across her mind, quickly banished. She glanced out the window and noted the sky. It was nearly time for an evening meal. . .the place she was staying would provide a meal for her.

As she climbed to her feet, she glanced in the mirror and was arrested by her appearance. The civilian clothes or Sentinel armor that she had become used to seeing herself in were nowhere in sight; instead, she wore simple cloth boots, pants, and an undershirt, with a robe over it all. Her scar had faded, but she still wore undershirts most of the time with robes like this that plunged low. Standing in front of the mirror, she looked at herself and was more pleased with what she saw than what she had seen the last time she had taken time to look at herself. Her hair was still caught back in a leather thong, but instead of being knotted and tangled, it flowed in smooth blue waves once more. She was not as skinny as she had been, and though her muscles did not bulge as they once did (wearing heavy armor and swinging a moonglaive did that to you) they were present and well-shaped.

She bit her lips nervously, and then quickly shrugged the leafy looking robe off her shoulders and let it fall to her waist as she stripped off the undershirt she was wearing and threw it to the side. The scar was only really noticeable if you looked for it, despite how large it was, and exposing it to the world would tell them she was proud of what she had done at Hyjal. Undershirt gone, she pulled her dress back up over her shoulders and fixed the front, smiling at herself in the mirror. What she wore was nicely woven, and she rather enjoyed the low cut of the front. Her fingers traced the line of cloth against her skin and ran over the scar and down to her stomach – a mixture of the past and present. Now, she was ready to go out into the world.

_**~-~-startender-~-~**_

It didn't take long for Kat to meet the other people who regularly ate inside the Aldrassil eating hall. There were only a handful, but they were kind and friendly, and nobody noticed her scar. . .or, at least, nobody commented on it. After eating, one of the other women, an off-duty Sentinel, invited her to the barracks to talk, and she eagerly followed, glad for some of the fellowship she remembered. They sat and talked for a while, until Kat noticed the darker sky and realized she needed to sleep. Then she scurried back to her room and curled up in her bed, relishing the feel of sheets against her skin. She knew that she probably would be too busy and tired the next few days to appreciate such small luxuries, and her mind whirled with the possibilities of the new few days as she dropped off to sleep.

When she woke, it was with the sky turning brighter, as it always had been as a Sentinel. Her bodily clock was still in tune with the way she had worked for a little over three thousand years, rising early and sleeping early. Even when her mind had been fogged with grief and loss, she had always risen with the bright sky and slept with the darkening. She rose from her bed and dressed, pulling on the leafy robe that marked her as a novice druid. Then she pulled her hair back in her trademark tail and slung the carrying strap of the leather knapsack she had been given around her waist after checking inside to make sure everything she had been given was still intact.

Her final attachment was simple, and yet something she was not used to wearing: a wooden staff, made of straight branches lashed together with cord, and the holster that would let her sling it onto her back. Anyone who knew her knew that the staff was mostly formality, or in case she needed to hold something off; her strength was in spells, not melee. Here, her old weapons training kicked in, and she examined it carefully. The branches were straight and thick; the cord was new and strong; and the knots were well-woven and tied tight. This is a good weapon, her mind murmured to her as she latched the holster into place. The holster, too, she had examined: two simple hooks to slip into her clothing and a leather cord woven in such a shape that she could put the staff in and let it lay until it was needed, when it would be able to be pulled forth swiftly. So she settled the new staff into its place, shifting a bit to get used to the new weight on her back, and walked out, ready to fight.

As she walked out into the main area of the inn, a warm voice met her ears. "Good morning, druid Katarinea! How was your sleep?"

"It was well. How are you this morning?" Kat smiled at the innkeeper, a friendly young woman who smiled often and laughed loudly.

"Oh, I'm pretty good! But before I get sidetracked, one of the conservators heard you were here and asked me to send you his way. You're not the first new recruit through here. . .a while back there was a stampede of people, and ever since there have been people trickling in. Some are crazy talented, and others. . .well, for some people, it's a wonder they made it through basic!" A robust laugh rang through the air as she chuckled over some mystery event that had crossed her mind. After a moment, she calmed down and smiled at the taller druid. "Anyway, the conservator wants to see you. He's outside, near the uh. . .wheresat. . .Ugh! I've said this a thousand times, and I still can't remember where he sits! Uhm. . It's the bench just off the main road. It's not hard to spot, and neither is he – he's the dork with the green hair." The innkeeper lowered her voice and leaned in Kat's direction, a mischievous smile playing across her face. "He'll act smart and uppity probably, but truth is, he's just nervous. He's not a people person. Silly brother! Oh, and I'm sorry – I'm being rude. Sirella Moonhaven, at your service!" Then she dropped a mocking bow accompanied by a wide grin.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Sirella. It's nice to see a merry elf." The young druid answered, another, more genuine smile playing across her lips. "I will be on my way as soon as I eat."

"Oh, shadow silk! I forgot! I'm so sorry. . ." Sirella sprinted away into a mysterious door (clearly marked "Kitchen") and returned in a moment with a tray of food. "Most of our guests aren't up so early, so we don't serve breakfast till later. The only people that eat this early are the Sentinels, and they usually just pop into the kitchen and grab a bite. Here's some breakfast stew and fruit, and I even managed to sneak some leftover spider kabobs on there!" At the mention of the spider kabobs, Kat's eyes lit up – she loved the crunchy texture and unique taste of spider kabobs. How the little innkeeper knew such a thing was far beyond her. . .Perhaps it was a common liking?

"Many thanks, Sirella! I am indebted to you." _Mmm, spider kabobs. . ._ She sat down at a table nearby and dug into her food, eyes alight with happiness over the delicacy. It didn't take long for her to dig into her food and enjoy every bite; lately, she had enjoyed her food more than she ever had, Elune only knows why. After finishing, she edged into the kitchen and handed the tray over to the busy elves washing dishes before heading out. Her first steps outside the inn nestled in the bottom of the tree were fraught with wonder as she raised her head and looked around. She hadn't really taken the time to look around last night, and the views that greeted her eyes were amazing.

A huge branch spiraled up into the sky at the edge of her vision, with hundreds of smaller trees clustered around the bottom of it. Looking back at Aldrassil in the daylight, she could see it was another branch that had grown tall and pierced the dirt, rather than a tree. It didn't take her long for her military-honed senses to place everything on a mental map; she made note to buy paper and sketch out the place. Purple and green leaves, both the plants that grew on the dirt and the leaves that fell, decorated the ground. Long winding paths made of light gray stone curled across the ground, with a tall, elegant signpost at the apex of the largest path. Sentinels patrolled these paths, eyes wary for hidden dangers – part of the reason Kat was here.

Shaking herself from her reverie of wonder, Kat started down the main path and kept an eye out for 'a bench just off the road'. It was only about five minutes of walking before she spotted said bench, with a tall, slender elf standing behind it and watching the animals patrolling. It really wasn't far off the road, and so she stepped off the stone and into the leaves, padding across them and wincing at how thin her cloth boots were. It was so _odd_ to feel the leaves and plants brushing across the bottoms of her feet. . . When she reached him, she opened her mouth to speak and was cut off.

"Nature has a balance. This balance is delicate, and easily upset. Recently, there has been far too much rain. This causes the growth of more plants, which causes the feeding of more boars, which leads to more nightsabers having too much sustenance. All in all, there are too many boars and nightsabers for it to be healthy now." He turned around and surveyed her with a critical gaze. "I am here primarily to oversee the training, and for some, simply survival of new recruits. I do not know you yet, your name nor class of training, but I would ask of you a few simple things. First, your name, _any_ rank, and your training class. Once I know these things, I shall give you the other tasks."

Taken aback by a obviously often-said and well-rehearsed speech instead of the warm greetings she had been given since she came, Kat blinked at him before regaining control of her faculties and speaking. "Hello, conservator. My name is Katarinea Startender, master sergeant among the Sentinels. I am now a novice druid, and my military rank is not what I am addressed by any longer." She bowed to him and smiled. "I look forward to fulfilling your tasks."

Now, it was he that was taken aback, though she was not sure why. Were she able to hear his thoughts, she would have heard a bit of wonder at the fact that she was a master sergeant and yet still able to smile, and also curiosity about the scar he had noticed on his first once-over. But she could not, and so he spoke. "Greetings, Katarinea. I am glad to meet you; hopefully you will not be as much a disappointment as many other elves who have come this way." He turned and gestured at the view, and the many young boars and nightsabers. "I would ask of you to cull the population of these animals; there are far too many for it to be healthy. If you can survive this task, then I have another for you." He began to turn and then paused. "Ah, how rude. I forgot to give you my name. I am Ilthalaine."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Ilthalaine." Kat bowed and started walking past him, towards the young animals, before she paused. "Your sister says hello." And then she continued her walk, even at the sounds of dismay from behind her. She reached the crest of a small hill and looked down, eyes widening at what she saw. Ilthalaine wasn't kidding when he said there were too many boars and nightsabers – there were what seemed like hundreds of boar corpses strewn about with multitudes of young nightsabers feeding on them. A sigh escaped her lips and she walked down the side of the hill, so that she was within range to aim her spells properly. Then she narrowed her eyes, chose one of the closest nightsabers, and reached down inside her for the well of magic. It took a little fumbling to find it – she still wasn't very proficient – and then she pulled a thread from it, tugging gently to increase the flow and concentrating on her hands as she placed them together. Green energy flowed from her fingertips and coalesced between her hands as she tugged on the thread. She could feel the angry burn of the magic against her skin. .this spell was easy to cast, but it took some fortitude because the energy was displeased at being demanded to come forth so quickly.

Once the energy had built up sufficiently, she focused on her target and let the magic escape from her hands. It hissed and crackled as it flew through the air towards the small cat and struck it in the side. As soon as the magic left her hands, she was pulling the magic out again and letting it coalesce. Upon being struck in the side, the cat yowled and bounded towards her with smooth strides. More magic flew through the air and burnt its face, causing it to stumble and lose speed for a moment as she called forth still more magical energy. The cat reached her just as she was ready to let the last bolt loose, and it struck with great force, killing the young cat. The body fell at her feet, landing against her legs and causing her to stagger. Once she regained her balance, she crouched to the ground and searched the corpse for anything of interest. All she found was a handful of fur and a few loose fangs. She threw it in her pack anyway – people used these sorts of things, though she still hadn't figured out what they used them for. People were so odd. . .

Then she straightened up and chose another target, a young nightsaber happily gnawing on a boar's stomach. Again, she pulled the magic forth and let the wrathful energy collect between her fingers. This killing went more smoothly than the last, but near the end of the third time she was casting the spell, she wavered and the animal came close enough to scratch her. It left a gash across her legs, not long or deep, just smarting and slightly painful. The slight elf winced and closed her eyes, pulling on the energy again, but in a different way. She pulled smoothly and slowly, and concentrated it around the edges of the gash. It closed quickly, and she looked at the rip in her new robes with chagrin, but it passed quickly, and she bent down to search the body of the cat. This time, it was another loose fang, and when she picked the body up to move it to one side (so as to keep the "path" unobstructed), she discovered a pair of thin leather boots. How they had gotten there was a mystery, but she wasn't going to complain! She squatted down on the ground, pulled off the linen boots she had been given and pulled the boots on. . .

And promptly stuck her foot into something squishy. She shivered and pulled her foot out of the shoe and looked inside, to discover a handful of grass that had made its way into the boot. It didn't take long for her to clean it with one of the skins of water and her hands, and she checked the other one before she pulled it on. The old boots were dropped into her pack, and she strode on to pick her next target. Each time she cast the spell in combat, it became a little easier, and the magic didn't sting as much against her skin. Soon, the ground was littered with the corpses of the young nightsabers, and her robe was more than slightly tattered around the bottom edges from all the swipes the cats had taken at her. She straightened up from the last body – which, for some reason, had some _cheese_ of all things – and looked around, tallying up the body count. Twelve corpses lay strewn across the ground, some in neat piles and some laying haphazardly in the grass. She didn't like killing cats, but there were far too many for it to be healthy. Twelve should do for the moment – she was certain others would follow her, and continue to cull the population of nightsabers. A quick glance behind her assured her of this, as a novice warrior had entered the clearing and charged into battle with one of the cats.

Kat continued forward, over the next hill, and followed her nose to the next destination: a group of pigs, sleeping in the hollow of a huge tree. The group was huge, almost a herd of the animals! She focused on the one closest to her: a male boar that was about 3 months old and _huge_ for his age. Then she closed her eyes and reached down inside herself again for the magic, but she jumped when she realized the pool of energy was bigger and deeper than it had been. It had expanded during her training, but she hadn't known that it would continue to expand. . .though that did make sense. . . Enough distractions! Magic came forth from the well, but in slightly greater volume than she had become accustomed to. It hissed and burned angrily against her skin, but though the spell was stronger, it still was not enough to overwhelm her and make her drop the magic, as she had seen some recruits (usually those fresh from being a lifelong civilian) do. She loosed the spell and began another, casting them in chains of wrathful green magic. The boar charged with an enraged snort that almost made her drop the spell – the cats had been remarkably silent, but these pigs wouldn't go down as quietly, it seemed.

The spells burnt his skin and sent a sizzling through the air that made her vaguely hungry as the boar charged at her. He reached her position much more quickly than the lithe nightsabers and snapped at her legs, rending her robe again and letting the cloth hang loose to the ground. His next snap nearly got her legs, at which she loosed the spell she had a bit too early for it to hold form. The magic burned against her hands and made her hiss as she jumped backwards to escape his rage-filled bites. A couple quick hops back and then a sprint to the side got her out of the range of the pig and allowed her to begin the cast again. Just as he reached her again, the spell flew and struck him squarely in the face, toasting his eyes and brain thoroughly and making him fall to the ground dead. She squatted to the ground to loot the body, grumbling about the way that her new robe was thoroughly ruined. Her skin healed easily, but it would be nigh impossible to stitch the rent robe together.

As she absent-mindedly searched the body, her fingers stumbled across something incredibly odd. There were lines on the corpse that were oddly textured. . . She looked down, and discovered something wrapped around the body. "What in the world tree. . ." Kat tugged gently at whatever was wrapped around the body of the boar. It came loose quickly and unraveled from the body, but it was still stuck beneath the corpse, so she kicked at the limp form and it rolled slightly, letting the mystery item loose. She shook it out and gazed in amazement – it was a leather breastplate, perfectly good and whole, well-sewn and decorated. The color left something to be desired, but it was perfectly fine otherwise. A wicked grin curled her lips as she thanked Elune for her provision of new armor. Her cursory search of the body had yielded nothing else, so she stood up, half-tucked the breastplate in her bag, and proceeded to strip the cloth robe off. It came over her head easily, but the dangling strips of torn cloth hit her in the face and caused her to spit in disgust – the scraps were wet with the spit of the animals that had rent it, so she finished pulling it off quickly and tossed it to the ground.

A gasp from behind Kat gave her a moment's pause, as she turned and raised an eyebrow. A stalker in training had dropped out of his stealthy walk in shock, and his face was turning an almost-human pink in embarrassment, with a trickle of blood escaping his nose. "Sorry for offending your delicate sensibilities, rogue." Kat murmured, struggling to repress the grin that threatened to crop up. She succeeded in that, but she did not succeed in suppressing the desire to bounce lightly on her toes. The stalker sputtered and bit his lip as he turned and marched away, gait stiff and ears pale with embarrassment. Kat went back to dressing, pulling the leather armor over her head and cinching it close to her with her belt. As soon as the stalker was out of earshot, though, she let out a peal of laughter and bent over cackling. Laughter filled the ear, though it did not startle the boars that were grazing nearby. After letting out her mirth at the situation, Kat stood back up and focused on her job. . . though a few chuckles still spilled from her lips every few moments.

_**~-~-**__** startender -~-~**_

"The task you gave me has been fulfilled, Ilthalaine. Many of the young animals have returned to Elune's embrace, and the balance has tipped a little closer to where it should lay." Kat said, meeting the tall man's gaze. "What other tasks have you for me?"

"You have done a good job, Katarinea. Most of the others sent to help allay the balance did not return without injury, but you have returned without scratch and with more than when you left." Ilthalaine smiled at her, a genuine smile in a face that was not accustomed to such. "I have been given some items to give to those who are successful in the slaying of the animals, but there are not many things left. There are some old gloves from the archery trainer, and bracers made from the stems and leaves of the local trees, but that is all I have for the moment." He offered an apologetic grimace as he held out the two items, one in each hand. The gloves were simple leather gloves, but the bracers were beautiful, with twigs and purple leaves winding together. It was with a bit of sadness she reached for the gloves and pulled them on, nonetheless relishing the feel of the leather against her skin and between her fingers. They weren't as high-quality as the gloves she had worn as a Sentinel (those gloves were lined with cloth and fur in order to insure that they didn't slip off the hands when said hands became sweaty), but they were nice gloves.

"Thank you very much for these gloves. They appear to be quite serviceable, even if they are old." Kat smiled. "While it was not a pleasure to kill, it was necessary, and there is always relief in knowing that one's actions may prevent some greater tragedy. I am grateful for the chance to be of help. Is there anything else that I may help with?"

"Yes, actually. This population of nightsabers and boars is only the youngest – the most recent generation. There is another generation that we could not cull. If you would search for this older generation, and return them to Elune, we would all be most graceful. You can tell the nightsabers apart in that they are larger, and they look rather mangy. The boars are larger as well, and will probably have thistles in their mane. . .they enjoy the taste of them once they grow older." Ilthalaine sighed and shook his head. "It grieves me to have to put down such magnificent creatures, but they will hurt everyone too much if they stay alive."

Kat sighed and nodded. "It is not a pleasure to kill animals, but at the very least there will be some balance restored. Which reminds me. . .what will happen to the bodies I left behind? Will there be someone coming to make use of the skin and meat?"

"Ah, yes. Some of the hunters come out once or twice a day and butcher the bodies. Nothing goes to waste, I assure you. We have much dried meat for travel and the cool season already laid in stock." He smiled. "Elune allows us to gain even from this sadness. It is a blessing." The tall man turned and gestured in the direction of Aldrassil. "The generations of animals you will be hunting have taken to lurking about the moonwell behind Aldrassil. I hope you fare as well this time as before." He began to sit down, but then he started and stood back up. "Oh! My apologies, this had slipped my mind. The druid trainer here, Mardant Strongoak, has heard of your presence and is eager to meet you. He sent a message – ah, here it is." He picked up a piece of parchment and scanned it before handing it to you. "That has all the details. I will not keep you any longer – farewell, Katarinea." He sat down on the bench there in the clearing and sighed, muttering under his breath barely loud enough to be heard. _"First company in five days that can string more than two sentences together. I never knew young people were so mentally impaired."_

Kat laughed under her breath as she walked away, heading in the direction of the road. Once she had found it (walking over the ground was so much easier with leather boots), she devoted her attention to the message she had been given. It was written in a strong, slanted hand, with verdant ink that shimmered in the daylight.

_Katarinea, when word reached me that you were ready, I sent this sigil immediately. All of Cenarius' druids take great satisfaction in seeing our numbers bolster. The spirits even seem to have become stronger with our enhanced presence. In time, and with some patience, hopefully our strength will return to its former grandeur. Find me within Aldrassil when you are ready. I will be your guide as long as you are in Shadowglen._

_Mardant Strongoak_

She smiled at the last name and wondered if he was related to Lakura Strongoak – a beautiful, strong woman that had been her commanding officer for her first thousand years as a Sentinel. It had been a long time she had thought about the older woman, and she didn't know if Lakura had been at the battle for Mount Hyjal. Hopefully, she was still safe. Her thoughts flowed from Lakura to Mardant, and from there to the training she had received in Moonglade. It didn't take her long to get back to Aldrassil, and a glance at the sky told her it was about halfway to the middle of the day, which was nowhere close enough to the time for lunch. . .so she started up the long pathway grown from the tree itself that curled around the trunk. As her steps carried her around the tree, she looked down and shivered at the heights that were quickly becoming dizzying. Kat murmured to herself, "_It's just a short drop. It'll be okay. . ."_ before lifting her head and focusing on the pathway.

When she reached the official looking little cubby second from the top, she sighed with relief. The little sign just outside the doorway indicated this was her stop, and she was glad. She had never been very fond of heights, though she had an exceedingly strange affinity for jumping from high places. She turned in and glanced through the doorway, assessing the contents of the room before she entered. There was a man in the back of the room, standing and talking to a seated woman. The man was shorter than usual for an elf, although he would still tower over most humans. Light green hair the color of new grain cascaded over his shoulders and the mace hanging from his back, and a grin stretched across his face to highlight his features. Kat smiled as she recognized something very familiar – his nose was exactly like Lakura's. She glanced at the woman he was talking to and raised an eyebrow. _He looks like Lakura, so I know he's related to her. But who's that woman. . .? _Her thoughts were cut short when the woman turned and her face was revealed to Kat's eyes. Kat's jaw dropped and her train of thought disappeared as she flew into the room and tackled the woman to the ground. _"LAKURA!"_ She crowed with a huge grin as she hugged the slight, muscular woman that was flabbergasted.

The other woman reacted quickly, attempting to flip Kat but only managing to get the druid off of her. "Who are you. . ." she began to snarl before she saw the features of the blue-haired elf. _"Kat?_" Lakura's voice and expression changed, and she threw her arms around Kat, who was grinning wickedly. "Oh, Elune, have I missed you, you silly foolish girl!"

"Aaaah! I missed you more!" They rolled on the floor, hugging each other frantically and squealing in happiness for several minutes before they calmed down and stood to their feet. Upon this, they promptly began hugging again and squealing with glee.

"Ahem." They both jumped and screamed quietly when Mardant cleared his throat and spoke. "If you're quite done with acting like you're a hundred, I would like to know who you are, strange one, and how it is you know my sister." Though he said the words in a level tone with a slight amount of censure in it, his eyes sparkled and his grin betrayed his good nature. "I will assume you are one Katarinea Startender whom I sent for recently?"

Kat pulled away from Lakura and grinned sheepishly, yellow eyes glittering with happiness. "I apologize, sir. I am she who you speak of."

"Forget answering that old codger, answer me! How are you? Where's Li'sel? Why are you here? Were you at Hyjal?" Lakura laughed and smiled, white eyes gay and amused. "Oh, I have missed you so much!"

"I'm okay, but Li'sel. . . won't be showing up any time soon." A dark shadow passed over her face at the thought of her faithful, beloved cat partner. "I'm here to help with some things and advance my training, and yeah, I was at Hyjal. Were you? How have you been? Why are _you _here? Did you transfer out from Irontree?" Kat tugged on Lakura's arm and smiled at Mardant, inclining her head towards the table and benches in the room. Mardant nodded and took a seat himself, a chuckle escaping him at just how excited his little sister was. Lakura threw herself down on the bench without any prompting, eyes still glowing, and Kat followed, a gentle smile curving her lips. They talked for probably the better part of three hours, until Mardant glanced out and saw that the sun had come to the halfway point in the sky.

"I apologize, but we shall have to continue this little rendezvous some other time. There is business Katarinea needs to take care of for me – druid business." Mardant said, lips curling in a smile before he mentioned the "business". "I am sorry for interrupting this, sister, but business is business."

"If it's druid business, then why is Kat taking care of it? She's a Sentinel, warrior blooded all the way through!" Lakura half-yelled, her merriment overtaking her and keeping her from seeing the awkward expressions that spread across first Kat, then Mardant's faces as they stood. "Heck, now that I think about it, why are you here for training? You got all your training long ago and we both know it – I was your commander for the first thousand years you were with the Sentinels! You were such a green oak back then. . ."

"I, er, well. . ." Kat stammered, momentarily at a loss for words before she managed to bring her mind back to the matter at hand. ". . .I'm not a Sentinel anymore." Those words managed to bring Lakura out of her happiness-induced drunkenness; indeed, she snapped to attention more quickly than one would think she could.

"What are you talking about? You can't just quit being a Sentinel. Sentinels are Sentinels for life, or until they can't fight any longer." The frown that furrowed Lakura's smooth face was a fearsome thing t look at, especially when combined with the displeasure that was spread across her features, plain for the world to see.

"I suppose I technically still am a Sentinel, but not in the same sense as I once was." Kat smiled a tight smile, one full of discomfort with the situation. "I'm a druid now, though I have no designation. I'll probably end up as a druid of the wild, but it is hard to tell. That is why I am here. I still need much training in order to be the best druid I can be."

"But. . .why would you give up your rank and place in the Sentinels? You loved it there."

"I did hold much affection for the Sentinels, but there was always something inside me that felt stifled. I know what that is – there is a fount of magic inside me, a fount that was left to simmer for the entire time that I was a Sentinel. It took _two and a half years_ before I was able to cast a spell that didn't do way more than it was supposed to do. The first time I ever tried the wrath spell, I burnt my hands with the magic so badly the healers didn't dare do anything to my hands because they were afraid there would be magical reactions that would make it worse. I couldn't feed myself, let alone do anything else, especially not practice my spells." Kat let out a huge sigh and closed her eyes, lips trembling. "I couldn't. . .after Hyjal, everything was different. Father, Li'sel, Natasya. . .so much death and sickness and sadness – life was so painful. I couldn't live that way. I was so close to just asking Elune to forgive me and finding some mad furbolg to make me a wisp. And then I – then I heard that women could be druids and I knew, I just knew that it was a message from Elune. There was nothing left for me with the Sentinels except pain." After the spew of words that fell from her lips, she shuddered and bit her lips. "I'm sorry."

Silence permeated the room, thickening the air and making everyone in the room shift nervously. Eventually, Lakura broke the silence with a simple, quiet "I'm so sorry, Kat. I didn't. . .I'm sorry." The High Commander of the Sentinel forces in what was now known as the Fel Wood stood, walked across the room, and hugged Master Sergeant Startender of the 32nd troop of Hyjal. Mardant shifted from foot to foot uneasily, eyes averted from the two as Lakura held the younger women for a moment before she pulled away. "Come on, let's go have a bit to eat, and then you and Mardant can discuss your 'business'."

Kat smiled a sad, slow smile that was entirely too much at home on her face, and answered quietly. "Yeah, sure. I am kinda hungry. Let's go. . ." They filed out of the room, conversing quietly, and went down the spiral of the tree to eat. They talked all through the meal, though the sadness in the corners of Kat's smile never quite left. Mardant and Kat eventually went back up and discussed "druid business", and then Kat went about the tasks she had been given. After she killed more nightsabers and boars, she was sent to a dryad who asked her to search the grellkin for signs of corruption. Kat ended up with sticky hands full of felmoss, and then she was sent to cobble together an antidote for spider venom. The antidote needed spider venom, which unnerved her. Spiders always did. There were several other tasks she was given, all which she completed as quickly as possible. The grief Lakura's unthinking words had dragged back up to the surface followed her all through the day, and she became less a participant in what she was doing and more an observer.

The day passed quickly, and the evening meal found Kat picking at her food in exhaustion. She had run all over the shadowy glen of Aldrassil and done things for everyone, it seemed. There were a few more things she had written down to do, but after that she could head to the tiny town of Dolanaar. She sighed and pushed the remainder of her food away and stood up to head to her room and sleep, despite that it was still not very late. Halfway there, she was intercepted by Lakura, who offered her a smile and asked if they could talk. Kat nodded a reluctant yes and they headed to Kat's room together. They did not stay awake late into the night, for Kat was far too tired for that. There was _some _talking, but more of it than not was Lakura. . .comforting Kat.

Kat woke with the first dim light filtering through the leaves, as usual. She slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb the still asleep Lakura, and tiptoed to the window, scorning the washrobe that hung from a twig on the wall. She pushed open the leaf that served as a shutter and sat on the sill to look out at the landscape, weak dawnlight and light wind rubbing her bare skin as she looked out. It looked to be a beautiful day, with perhaps a light drizzle of rain, but something inside her balked at the thought of going out into the world. . . the world that did not have the cat who had been her constant companion for three thousand years, the father who loved her so, and the girl who had been her best friend for the most blissful years of her life. She closed her eyes with a sigh and began a prayer to Elune. Bleak or not, she had to go out into the world. She was needed.

A moment later, she nearly jumped out of her skin when a hand trailed down her back and an arm wrapped itself around her shoulders. "What's the matter, kittycat? Why are you so mournful this early in the morning?" Lakura purred, laying her head on Kat's shoulder.

"I can't help it. Part of me just wants to lay down and sleep. . .sleep until everything's fixed. . ." Kat sighed, eyes closing as she leaned back. "It would be so easy, too. . ."

"Yeah. Yeah, it'd be easy. . .but would it be right? Would it be what Natasya wanted for you? What about Li'sel and your father? They all loved you, and they all. . .well, they gave their lives for you." The commander looked out at the landscape and smiled. "You have to live for them, live the lives that they can't any more. Do everything they wanted to do, that they wanted you to do – _live_, Kat."

Kat was quiet for a few moment as she looked down at her lap, thoughts racing through her mind. Then she spoke, her voice full of tears. "I miss them so much, and it's so hard. I really. . .I really want to live for them, but sometimes it's just. . ." A frustrated gesture expressed all her emotion, and Lakura nodded. "I try. Today and yesterday. . . will probably be my worst days for a long time." They stood there for a few moments longer before Kat stirred and pulled away. "I need to get ready to go do more grunt work. I feel like some dumb Sentinel with my commander mad at me with all this junk." She smiled a wan smile at Lakura, but there was a spark in it that satisfied the older woman.

"Get to work, private! I don't like slackers!" She barked harshly, eyes twinkling merrily at her former underling. "And that's an order, you stupid earthsucker!"

"Commander, yes, commander!" Kat barked back, her spine ramrod straight as she jumped across the room, winking at her old officer slyly before they both dissolved into laughter that rang out through the window and made more than one person wonder what was going on in there.


	3. 2: Blood and Runes

"Aaaaaahhhh!" Screaming pierced the air in one of the many quiet, shadowed corners of Teldrassil. A night elf fled down a simple stone road, hands flailing like a windmill around their head. "Get _off_ of me, you stupid bird! I SAID I WAS SORRY!" Kat squealed, running for her life and hoping vainly that the bird flapping just behind her, pecking at her head, would leave her alone. She had been coming out of the shadowy glen of Aldrassil, laden with notes and small packages from people there for the people in the next town over, when she had heard a strange noise behind her. Her honed reflexes from being a Sentinel were still in place, though various things were not as keen as they once had been . . . so she whirled around and shot off a spell she had just learned from Mardant. The spell had gleamed in the sky, a simple shot of Elune's magical fire, as it fell down towards, horror of horrors, an innocent bird.

Now she was fleeing from the angry bird (who was rightfully angry) in hopes that the bird would just get bored and fly away without having to be killed. Finally, after five or six minutes of running and screaming, the bird just got to a point where it didn't care any longer and flew back to its nest. Kat stumbled to a stop and leaned over, panting heavily as sweat rolled down her face. "Stupid. . .Elune-cursed. . .bird. . .needs to go. . .find a fire. . .and be tasty. . ." After a moment of vainly trying to regain her breath, she gave up and plunked down on the path, sprawling across the stone. "Stupid . . . bird. . ."

Five or six minutes later, she stood up and rubbed a thin hand over her sweaty face. "Ugh. I'm so out of shape . . . Lakura, or Kirei, or Analan, or. . .Nat. . .would've sliced me open if I'd gotten this fat before." She checked the backpack slung around her waist and the small side pouch she had found in a nest of grellkin to make certain they were secure, and then continued on down the road. It was a gorgeous day, with the dew still on the leaves and the sunlight filtering gently through the canopy. A gentle breeze swirled around her and lifted the dark strands of blue hair that had fallen out of the tight tail she always pulled it back into, and the quiet cries of animals could be heard in the air. Kat lifted her face to the sky as she walked and let the wind touch her face, drying the salty liquid and cooling her body. It didn't take long till she came to a signpost, but that signpost gave her a moment of pause.

"Hmm. . .Let's see, what was the name of that town? Was it Starbreeze, or Dolanaar?" Kat bit her lip and debated for a few seconds before making up her mind. "Starbreeze it is. . .sounds like a nice place!" She started down the side path, ignoring the papers in her bag that were very clearly addressed to _Dolanaar_. As she walked along, though, she noticed a few things that made her eyebrows raise and her mind uneasy. To one side of the path, there was a beautiful urn, usually used for drinks or perfume, probably. . .dashed against the ground, the top shattered and a chink missing at the bottom, as though it had been dropped in a hurry. Farther along, she noticed a familiar farming tool thrown to the side, with spots of red blood and blue blood both decorating the tongs and handle. At that sign, she reached for her weapon and pulled it from the holder, holding it close to her side more as a source of comfort than anything else. The last thing she saw that gave her alarm was as she drew close to the village. . .she saw a huge patch of gorgeous cloth, well-woven and colored, covered with dried blue blood, laying in the grass. Then she came into the village proper.

She was horrified. Corpses lay everywhere – here was a young elf, probably barely a thousand years old, a crude knife buried in her stomach. There was an older elf, his hair beginning to purple at the temples, impaled on a shovel. Blue blood decorated the grass and leaves and bodies liberally. . .and more than night elf corpses lay about. Furbolg bodies with white fur, muzzles wet with saliva, and fel moss curled into their hair, lay over several of the elven corpses. Scattered around the former town, she saw other furbolgs standing and ambling about, heedlessly stepping on and over their comrades' bodies. Dark blood stained their claws and their mouths. Kat hissed in anger as she viewed the carnage that had been made of this once-peaceful town, her fingers digging into the wood of her staff as she struggled not to attack every furbolg in sight. Her eyes darkened to only a glimmer in her face and she murmured under her breath. "Elune-cursed fel corruption. . ." She knew that if she were still a Sentinel, still had her moonglaive and her armor, still had her beloved cat and her best friend by her side, then she could take them easily. But she was not. She was only a lone druid with a minimal amount of spells at her command.

_**Thw-shick!**_ Something hard and heavy landed on her shoulder with great force, making her drop her staff and bite her lips in an effort not to shout with the pain. She lurched forward and landed on her good hand, spinning around and jumping to her feet after using her hand as a springboard. A single furbolg leered at her, rake in one blood-stained paw. After a moment of pause, it sprang at her, a ferocious roar bellowing forth from his throat. The former Sentinel jumped backwards again and dropped to the ground to miss his sloppy thrust, and her mind and hands went straight to her side to grab her glaive. They grasped wildly and found nothing save a handful of leather belt, and her mind went to the staff she had dropped. From there, her thoughts jumped to the spells she had learned, and she began the simple chant in her mind for the moon's fire. Before she could finish the chant, though, one of the furbolg's wild swings caught her in the shoulder and gouged into her skin.

She yelped and rolled to the side, finishing the chant barely, and hitting the furbolg in the side of the head with the moonfire. Kat jumped to her feet and ran forward, the dazed furbolg taking notice after a few seconds and giving chase. When she ran by her staff, she swooped down to pick it up. The air whipped by, drying the trickle of blue oozing from her shoulder as she ran. Her feet pounded against the stones set into the ground, stones that were in places splattered with more than one color of blood. For a few moments, all she could hear was her frantic panting and the enraged roars of the furbolg behind her. Then _**thwack!**_ The rake slammed into her side again and knocked all the breath out of her, nearly succeeding in knocking her off her feet. Kat slowed and tried to draw a breath in vain, stumbling along the path and hoping with all her might that the furbolg would leave her be.

Finally, she collapsed to her knees, no longer able to stand because of her lack of air and the burn of her muscles. Kat sucked in a long breath and enjoyed the air flowing through her lungs, even as she winced in preparation for the angry weapon to land upon her. When no blow was forthcoming, she craned her head and looked behind her. The furbolg was running back to the town, froth whiter than his fur wetting his muzzle and blue blood wetting the tines of his rake. At the sight, she nearly collapsed in relief. She sucked in another breath and let her muscles receive all the necessary oxygen they had been deprived of, relaxing and nearly falling onto her face when her muscles loosened up.

"What in the world tree. . ." Kat looked back at the town, and now that she looked for it, she could see the signs of a still village, with no life to speak of. She had seen it before, that furbolgs might go mad and slaughter a village; but only a few times, and there was always outside involvement inciting them to madness. The first time she had seen it had been a mage, hidden in society, driving them mad with magic in order to exact revenge. He had been summarily executed as an example. The second time, it had been a group of satyr. In both cases, the culprit was quickly destroyed after the mad furbolgs had been culled. It was always a tragedy to see the tranquil, intelligent beings driven to insanity, and she had a personal vengeance against those who would do so. Spitting in the direction of Starbreeze, she mouthed a foul curse-prayer full of Elune's wrath against the perpetrators of this heinous crime, and then she sheathed her staff and marched back to the main road. This time, she checked the name on the notes in her bags to be certain of her destination. After a few moments of rest spent healing the wounds the mad animal had inflicted on her, she wandered down the road towards Dolanaar, holding her just-injured shoulder gingerly.

After another hour and a half traveling, she began to hear the sounds of a typical small elven town. She could hear the creaking joints of the towering Ancients that were wont to guard the towns, the quiet bustle of elves at their daily work, and the sounds of the priestesses singing a hymn to Elune. Kat smiled and sped up, the daily sounds of the village a comfort after the eerie silence of Starbreeze. Wind swirled around her and brought the scent of blood and sweat to her nose, and her feet slowed to a stop as her mind called up a memory: Natasya and Kat, laughing gaily as they bandaged each other's wounds after a skirmish with a band of satyr. She bit her lip and struggled not to let the ever-present grief well up inside her too strong, but it was unsuccessful. Tears began to trickle down her cheeks, and after a moment, she bent over and began to sob into her hand. Her nose began to run and her eyes became sore, but she was too focused on the well of pain inside her to notice the tears and mucus slathering her hands. When an owl whistled nearby, though, she jumped to attention and once again her hands flew to her side.

When she saw the "threat" was just another bird, she sighed and let her hands drop. The nasty solution dripped from her fingers and onto the road, unnoticed as she wallowed in her grief. Kat trembled a few seconds as tears continued to stream, and then she let one last sob escape before she raised a hand to wipe the tears from her dimmed eyes. She shook the nastiness off her hand and trudged along, shoulders drooping as she entered the lively village. Regardless of the sadness that permeated her heart, the sound of life made a wan smile curl her lips. It had been a very long time since she had heard such a town . . . Moonglade was very odd in that everyone there was always studying nature, not just living. Necessities of life were flown in by hippogryph. The last one had been Darkshore, and before that – she shook the thought from her mind and looked up to ask a guard for directions to the inn.

Kat smiled at the pretty guard that greeted her, and after a moment of conversation, she moved into the town proper. Beautiful, elegant buildings surrounded her, the wood used in them singing a lovely song of happiness, joy at being useful. . .not like the wood and stones the humans and orcs had used in their buildings, which cried out in pain as it was marred and trapped in ugly structures. She could hear the joyous creaking of the Ancients, happy to serve, and the purr of the animals that lurked in the corners of the town. The gleeful shouts of young elves filled the air, and here and there she heard a whispered declaration of love. It was a scene that made her smile, and pushed her sorrow into the back of her mind. The inn was only a short distance from the gate, and it was obvious that it and the large branch-tree beside it were the center of the town. She slipped into the inn and delivered a supply package, along with two or three personal notes, to the innkeeper. She saw loving words etched on the outside of each one, and it made her grin. Apparently the grass-haired man was a heartthrob among the Sentinels at Aldrassil.

After delivering the supply package to the quiet, stoic innkeeper, a quick glance at the sky told her it was almost time for a meal. So she slipped the man a few coins, and scuttled downstairs to enjoy a hot, delicious meal of bean soup, bread, and water. It was not a fancy meal, but it was tasty and filling, and Kat knew from experience that it would give her much energy for the no doubt busy day to follow. Besides, too much rich food was likely to give her indigestion. She had no desire to experience the sick rumbling in her stomach.

After a little rest, she bounced out of the inn and across the road, to the smaller branch-tree that had been grown into a tower. There, she ran into an unexpected surprise when she tripped on a rock beside the moonwell inside and almost hit her head on the ramp upstairs. A priestess that had been quietly conversing with someone else rushed over and knelt beside Kat as she sat up.

"Are you alright, miss? That was a nasty fall. . ." The voice speaking to her was strangely familiar, and so was the situation. It wasn't the first time she had had such a mishap; it was something Nat had ribbed on her mercilessly for, that she could be graceful and deadly in the field, but trip over air the rest of the time. She shook her head and looked up, ready to greet the concerned priestess and assure her that she was fine, but instead of speaking her mouth dropped to the ground and she was silent. After a moment of silence, stunned silence on Kat's part and wondering silence on the part of the priestess, she spoke.

"_Byancie?"_ Kat squeaked, her eyes gleaming gold at the sight of the familiar priestess. Byancie had no magical talent, but was remarkably good with anatomy, poultices, and bandaging wounds, so she had served behind the lines in many skirmishes, helping those who were not grievously wounded so that the healers could focus on the worst injuries. Nat and Kat had often sat with her after fights and drank heavily of the strong spirits the non-magical healers were given to knock out the injured, cackling at the smallest things and hitting on all the male priests. "Is it really you?"

The priestess' mouth dropped, memories flooding into her mind at the sound of Kat's voice. "Oh, whoa! Kat. . .?" The new druid nodded eagerly, remembering things that were both painful and beautiful, the thoughts bombarding her. "Oh, Elune! What a miracle! It's been so long since I've seen you. Did you know I was the one tending to you during your temple stay after Hyjal? That was a pretty great wound! Left a lovely scar!" The lovely healer laughed, white braids bouncing along with her. "I've missed you so, ditzy blademaiden!"

"I missed you too, you drunken Elune-lover!" Once upon a time, the three of them had gotten so drunk that they had actually stalked one of the male druids flitting about the camp. He, upon discovering them, had been so startled and angry that he had called Byancie a "drunken Elune-lover" and Nat and Kat "ditzy, ineffective blademaidens". The only part of the statement any of them had taken offense to was the ineffective part, which got him a bloody nose and a sore solar plexus. "How's that lot back at the temple of idiocy?" Kat grinned as she spoke, making reference to Byancie's family.

"Pfff, that man is as much an idiot as he ever was. The kids are pretty good, but little Sisura wants to be a druid, and so does Gaibourn . . . I don't know about how good these new female druids are, but I'll reserve judgment. Everyone has the right to try, I hear, but the Cenarion Circle only lets in the best, I hope." Byancie sighed. "I know the Temple has lost a good crop of eager priestesses to the threatening clutch of the druidic arts. Still, my children have their own minds. Hopefully by the time they're old enough to try, they'll be smart enough to figure out where Elune would have them."

"I'm glad you're reserved judgment on female druids. I've removed myself from active duty with the Sentinels, and here I am, druidic magic and all!" A quick tug at the well of magic inside her brought forth a little wisp that she changed to healing energies and let whirl around her in a rejuvenating spiral. After the spell faded, Kat spread her arms to bow, and suddenly realized where she was: in the bottom of a tower, sitting on the floor, with a priestess bent over her. She blinked. Then she blinked again. And then she bent double with laughter at the absurdity of her situation – laughter that, nonetheless, was tinged with a bit of hysterics and grief. As she laughed wildly, Byancie looked confused for a moment, but then joined in with the laughter anyway.

After several minutes of unexplained laughter, Kat calmed down and Byancie came down with her. Kat stood and smiled at her old companion, with a hand extended. "It was great to see you, baby By-by. I'll be staying in town for a few days, probably, so we can catch up. For now, I have business in the top of the tower." Byancie took the offered hand with a smile and was about to speak when Kat pulled her into a tight hug and whispered in her ear. _"Don't go and get lost or die on me, okay?_" Then the priestess was released and Kat disappeared up the rampwell, leaving a confused elf behind her.

Byancie touched her arms, where Kat's hard hug had left impressions in the soft mageweave she wore, and looked upwards; she could see the new druid's legs pumping vigorously, but they were soon out of sight. She sighed and turned to go back to her station, soft white eyes welling up with tears. "Poor Kat . . . we miss Nat too, but that girl . . ."

_**~-~-startender-~-~**_

Kat glanced around as she crept into the mouth of the cave, keeping an eye out for the tainted grellkin that occupied this cave. There was someone in here, named Lord Melenas, who had supposedly been planning things "most foul". She didn't have many details, but there had been much harder missions before, so she had volunteered to take care of the problem. There was a foul stench in the cave, a very familiar stench. . .the smell of demon corruption, the smell of _wrongness_ that had started her career as a Sentinel. She could smell satyr all over the walls, and it made her shiver. A strong wish began to pulsate in her mind, a wish that she had her glaive and armor, a wish that she was going in with something more than a staff she could not use and spells she was still unfamiliar with.

But, though she was no longer a Sentinel, she was still no coward, and she crept forward bravely. After a moment of careful stealth, she heard something that made her crouch and her hands reach for the glaive that was no longer there. Quiet, impish chanting echoed through the air and against the stone surface of the cave's interior. She slipped forward again and glanced around the corner, and spied a shadowy sprite, dancing and singing without care. In her mind, the scene played out: she leapt forward, glaive in hand, and jammed it into the tiny body of the sprite, causing it to choke on its words and fall into an eternal sleep. The fantasy dissipated when she opened her eyes and remembered that she had only a staff and a handful of spells. She bit her lip and sighed as quietly as she could, and then she brought a spell to mind as she prepared to leap out and attack. She paused a second, and then another. . .and then she jumped out to fight.

The magic flew from her fingers and struck the unwary grell in the face, causing it to stumble and cry out. It quickly regained its bearings, though, and it stood tall as she prepared a second spell. As the lunar energy formed an orb around her hands, shadow magic curled around the body of the sprite. Her enemy managed to cast his spell before Kat finished hers, and the dark energy slammed into her stomach, causing her to gasp and wince as it ate at her skin. Then starfire came forth from the well of magic inside her, striking the sprite once more. He staggered and stopped his inane mumbles for a moment, but the magical pain did not delay him for long.

He sprang forward, brandishing a tiny dagger that he attempted to bury in her side, but she dodged and hissed at him, flinging her hands forward and throwing moonfire into his angry mouth. The tiny creature squawked and jumped to hit her in the face, managing to slice across her nose and opening her cheek wide. Kat let out a muted yell, and drew her staff to beat him off. She grasped her staff firmly in the middle and then swung at his head like it was a jug on a post. The blow connected, and he flew across the dark hall and hit the wall with a satisfying _thudcrunch._ She crouched down, staff tucked close to her side, ready for him to come at her again, but after a moment of silence she stood and crept forward. He laid there, the back of his head caved in, body limp.

Kat's muscles relaxed as she looked down at the dead grellkin, a quiet prayer to Elune falling from her lips before she put away her staff and knelt to search the body. She found a handful of silver, a few scraps of linen cloth tucked in its "robe", and the tiny dagger it had been wielding. One eyebrow came perilously close to her hairline when she discovered that, somehow, the small, crude weapon fit her hand perfectly. The copper went in her moneybag after a good rub, and the other things went into her bag. Then she shoved the blue body into a nook behind a large rock in the hallway and set to healing her wounds.

First, a single, thin thread of magic came forth and whirled around her stomach, rejuvenating her body and helping it recover from the magical damage. Then she pulled a larger chunk of magic out and channeled it to her fingers. She ran her hand across her face, sealing the wound and pushing the healing magic inside. After she healed herself, she took a quick drink of water and set off down the natural corridor, on guard once more as she heard faint chanting in the distance. After a few moments of walking and careful examination of the floor, Kat arrived at a fork in the cave system. She looked left, then right, then left, then right. . .and finally went to the left. As she walked down the path she had chosen, she noticed a stream ahead of her, burbling out of the brown rock. It was surprisingly clear and she could not smell the normal foul stench of fel-tainted water. But she was so preoccupied with the odd cave-spring that she didn't notice the dark orange imp ambling up the sloping path. . .

The creature sprang onto her back, ripping at her robes with its tiny dagger and sharp claws. Caught off guard, Kat yelled in surprise and reached for the thing on her back, trying to drag it off. Her struggles were in vain for a moment, but then she succeeded and tossed the small grell to the ground. She stumbled forward and pivoted quickly, turning her back to the wall and facing her attacker with her teeth bared. As she chanted the words to summon starfire under her breath, she noticed two things: first, she noticed the bloodied dagger in the imp's hand, and second, she felt the blood oozing down her back from an open wound in her back, close to her right shoulder blade. Magic danced around her fingers as the lunar energy that was quickly becoming familiar to her coalesced around her hands in shimmering orbs, and then she threw the dangerous stuff straight into the leaping grellkin's face. The ugly creature squealed and leapt backwards, jabbering at her angrily as it rubbed large hands over the magical burn on its face. Kat smirked and began another spell, but the maddened animal sprang at her, utterly enraged and ready to spill blood. The dagger, much like the last one, struck at her twice. . .and hurt her twice. The first slash flew across her stomach and at first there was no visible effect, but then blood began to well up through a long, shallow cut in her skin. The second one ripped her shoulder open where the furbolg had hit her earlier, and she staggered as the tender new blood vessels began to spout blue once more. The spell flew from her hands at the same time an angry, pained cry burst from her lips.

The magic hit the angry imp and it squawked, fell backwards, and lay still. Kat drew her staff and awaited the grell's return to its feet, but when it did not move, she prodded the body gingerly with her staff. Her only response was a slight twitch, more from her poking the body than from it reacting. Again, she relaxed, but this time her relief took a much more drastic form than it had before. She collapsed to the floor, drawing in a breath that shuddered and shook, and pressed her left hand against her shoulder to try and staunch the bleeding slightly. The edges of the torn skin pressed together and mana welled readily to her fingers. It was eerie to feel the healing process sped up – to feel the skin stretching and rebuilding itself, to feel the bleeding stop, to feel the torn muscle knot together and sometimes scar. Eerie though it was, it was also utterly fascinating. Whenever she healed herself, she liked to touch the wound and feel the processes of her body repairing itself (with magical help). Once that injury sealed shut, she pumped a little extra energy into it and went to the slash across her stomach. That one didn't take as much mana or time to heal.

The wound finished healing and she climbed to her knees and scooted into a cranny in the wall, pulling out a skin of water and drinking heavily. Water was followed by a huge chunk of cheese she ate quickly. Kat sighed and rested her head against the wall for a moment, and then her head whipped up as she heard tiny tapping footsteps come close to her. She pulled her legs close, tugged the shadows over here, and held her breath. After a minute of anxious waiting, she saw another savage orange grell painted in animal blood dance by her hiding place and leave. She blew out her breath in a gust and sighed again. She had been sighing a lot lately. . .

Kat stood and edged out of her nook to loot the dead body. Another handful of copper, a few more scraps of linen, and a rock. Why the thing was carrying a rock, she didn't know . . . After a quick glance behind her, she streaked down the hallway at a near-run, hand on her staff and senses alert. On her way through the winding corridors, she comes across probably a dozen more grell. Some of them injure her, but they all end up dead. Then she finally reached the main room of the cave – a huge, echoing chamber with a pool of water in the middle. The strange spring she saw earlier runs into it, but the water was still clean and clear, no demon-corruption tainting it. There were a few grell hopping around the edges of the place, but none of them drew her attention. What did was the opening halfway up one wall with a ledge jutting out from it. On that ledge sat a satyr, looking out over his "domain". He saw her and raised an eyebrow at her, followed by a menacing cackle. Then he did something that utterly enraged her: his body twisted and shook, and he turned into a cat.

That foul, evil being! How _dare _he taint the magic Elune and Cenarius had given to the druids! She bit her lip in an effort not to shout a taunt across the room (she'd picked up a little of the demonic language over the years fighting satyrs) and glared angrily around the room, looking for some way to access the little ledge he sat on. There was nothing – no way to come even close to the ledge. So she turned about and started running pell-mell through the caves. She stumbled across a few of the bodies she had left behind, but finally Kat found the fork where she was certain she had gone wrong. All sense of caution left her in her mad rage, and she fairly flew down that corridor as well. However, this hall was not filled with dead bodies – it was filled with live grell. One hopped at her, slashing wildly, and another set upon her from her left.

Spells flew wild and her staff was soon decorated with the sickly colors of grell blood. Why was it that they were the only creatures, other than demons, that had multicolored blood, she wondered. . . She continued on with a little more caution and eventually emerged into a cavern that seemed to be the source of the untainted stream. More grellkin frolicked about, some even playing in the water. Again, magic colored the air for a good ten minutes before the room calmed down. Kat staggered to a rock that was devoid of blood and pressed mana-heavy fingers against the several wounds that had torn her robe and her skin. Her own blue blood stained the thin leather, along with the blood of the grellkin. It took her about fifteen minutes to heal the wounds and recuperate from spending so much mana before she could stand up and walk. She took another ten minutes to just rest and let the thrum of magical healing diminish so that her head was not fogged (if you weren't careful, it happened; that's why the first time she practiced healing spells she sent her teacher into a euphoric daze, too much magic released at once and the body couldn't handle it). Once recovered, she moved forward, staff at the ready and keeping it in front of her.

She could practically _taste_ the satyr in the air. He was incredibly close, she was sure. So Kat snuck down the next hallway, her blood-washed boots making only a little noise as they rubbed against the cave floor. Her heart seemed incredibly loud in her ears, as it always was when she approached her target – it wasn't the first time she had been on a solo kill mission. Her favorite ones were the ones where she and Nat. . .no, she told herself, she couldn't afford to break down now! Kat crept forward and saw just ahead of her a widening in the hallway, to the left, that signaled an opening or a large nook. As she approached the place, the stench grew stronger, and she was left with the certain conclusion that "Lord" Melenas was through that opening. So she stood up straight, pressed her body against the wall, and slid.

Kat peeked around the corner and saw him there, overlooking his cave still yet. He had changed out of the cat form, but the very memory of it made her want to growl. The foul creature stood there, his tainted elven blood stinking up the entire cave, and she wanted nothing more than to see that self-same blood spilled all over the rocks surrounding him. A smile touched her face and stretched her lips wide, her fangs barely pricking her lower lip in a feral grin that had made the skin of many Sentinels crawl. _This_ was the fearsome bloodlust that had made her a Master Sergeant, this the anger that had led to the spilled blood of many demons. _Time for __**fun**__, _her mind mumbled as it lamented the loss of her gorgeous moonglaive. So, instead of drawing the huge weapon from her side and readying it to slice through bone, she called up a spell and sprang out from behind the rock, words flying from her lips in a quiet murmur. The spell finished as she landed on her feet and shouted to it in the demonic tongue, _"Foul one, tainted and cursed, you shall no longer harm this place!"_ Or, well, the rough equivalent. Demonic wasn't a coherent language, and she didn't know much of it.

The spell struck him in the middle of his back and he staggered, surprised by her ambush. As soon as her warcry had faded from her lips, she was casting another spell, the familiar green energy arcing around her hands. This cast was particularly strong, she could feel, for she was _angry_ and her anger fueled the magic. This, too, hit him; this time it was in the stomach. Then another spell – she was mumbling at an extreme rate. He laughed and winced in pain before he replied to her. . .in Darnassian. "Silly elf, you are not the first to come and try to rid this cave of me. Those who preceded you are over there." He gestured at the wall, where she inadvertently glanced, and her spell-casting slowed for a moment as she saw the skulls of at least _seventeen_ night elves. How many elves had the town leader sent in here?

While she was pre-occupied with the skulls, Melenas began to cast his own spell, dark energy fluttering around his body as he shrunk into a feline form. Then he concentrated . . .and disappeared. Kat shook her attention from the whitened bones and turned back to finish her spell, but he was nowhere in sight. The first inkling she had of his location was a pair of claws raking across her back and ripping open a ghastly wound. Blood began to pour down her back like a waterfall, and she stumbled forward and nearly fell to her knees. Thus it was she attempted her first combat healing – she closed her eyes and summoned the magic, willing the healing strands to wind around her body and try to stave off the bleeding. It managed to slow the loss, at least, and she turned around and spat a few angry words at him, followed by moonfire that flashed white against his dark-red fur. Starfire crackled around her hands and the spell flew towards him quickly. He dodged this one, though, and she could almost see the cat smirking at her.

Again he sprang at her, and this time her arm tore open beneath his claws. The healing magic was still rushing through her veins, though, and this wound did not gush blood but oozed it. Kat hissed and swung at him with her staff, the sudden melee surprising him and helping her push him away. Then another attack with the staff, stabbing towards him and pushing him back, and she could cast again. A quick dab of magic was withdrawn and thrown in the direction of her back, and then she was back to casting offensive spells. It was a long, drawn-out fight, and when it was over, the satyr's body lay at Kat's feet. Blood was pouring off of her and pooling on the ground, and she collapsed to her knees, weakly lifting one hand to her back and another to her shoulder, where the two most grievous wounds were. Healing magic was poured through her hands, and the injuries sealed up and healed over slowly.

She healed the various hurts the mad druid-satyr had inflicted on her tediously, her body almost drained of mana. Once Kat's body was whole once more, she reached into her pack and gulped down an entire flagon of water, followed by a second one and another hunk of Darnassian bleu. Then she finally let out a huge sigh as energy flowed back into her body. As Kat recovered from the long fight, she looked around at her surroundings. Blood was splashed all over the walls, both hers and that of Melenas. It was very easy to tell which was which – her blood was a light, thin blue shimmer against the stone, and his was dark, thick black-red that the stone would _not_ absorb.

Kat stood to her feet, shaky and wobbly, and leaned against the wall. With one hand, she gathered a handful of her blood, and with the other, she used that blood to draw runes on the wall. They were simple runes, runes of cleansing and purification, that would activate upon a code word; she had to use her blood, though, as it needed a powerful reagent. She didn't know if the Sentinels now would learn them unless they were in a fel-tainted area, but when she had joined she had been taught them, since they fought so many satyr in so many places that needed cleansing. Once the wall was covered in runes, she moved to the other side of the hall and repeated the procedure. When she was done her hands were covered in her own blood, drying quickly and becoming a dark blue, crusty material that clung to her skin. She brushed the stuff away and knelt beside the body of the satyr, probing the body for items of interest. She found another handful of copper, more scraps of linen, a couple pieces of tough jerky, and a small green pouch. She tucked the cloth, meat, and money away, and examined the bag. It was dirty, but no sign of demon curse lingered on it, so she tied it onto her backpack-strap.

Then Kat pulled out the tiny dirk she had taken from the first grell she fought and raised it high over her head with a grimace. The dagger whipped downward and buried itself in the spine of her enemy, and she wiggled it loose and repeated the process till she heard the bone snap. From there, it was really rather easy to saw through the neck of the furry demon. Finally, she was able to pull the head away from the body. "Ugh, ugly beast you are." She muttered as she shook the head, the thick blood spattering on the floor. She took out another flask of water and poured it over the head, washing away the fresh blood and making it relatively clean. Then Kat rummaged in her bag for the many scraps of linen she had gathered and wrapped the bloody bottom of the head with it. Then a cord tied it tight and she shoved it, ironically, into the bag she had picked up off his body. She gathered a huge handful more of her blood from the floor and started to go out, painting small runes on the wall as she went.

After a long half-hour, she finally saw the entrance to the cave. She painted the last rune on the rock that jutted out of the entrance and looked back. Tiny, elegant runes shimmered in the faint sunlight that filtered back into the cave – so she murmured the words that activated the runes. Little sparkles of light appeared and slowly got brighter before bursting into huge circles of moonlight that almost visibly brightened the cave even when they were gone. As the runes cleansed the fel-taint, she could hear tiny, tinny screams echoing through the caves. Kat just shrugged, turned around, and picked her way through the thick foliage and found the path that ran south of the cave. It was quite refreshing to smell flowers instead of stench.

_**~-~-startender-~-~**_

Kat sank into hot water and let out a huge, grateful sigh. Her muscles were knotted, her body was sore and tired, and her mana pool was stressed out. She laid there for probably half an hour, soaking the heat in and letting her muscles relax. Once she could move without her body shouting at her for it, she sat up and reached for the _arunel_ and cloth_. _She began to vigorously scrub her skin, the dirt and blood peeling off in thick layers that dirtied the water. Baths were a rare luxury, usually few and far between when she was out on patrol. So she was used to moving her body even when it shouted and screamed at her for rest, running and fighting even when she could barely lift her arms – there were many interesting memories of doing so. Once she had scoured her skin till it was gray from all the scrubbing, she plunged beneath the water and swam through the hot water to wash off the residue. When she popped up, she shook the water from her hair and went for the lustfruit oil to coat her hair.

As she was working the thin, slippery stuff through the strands of her hair, a draft of cold air hit her back and caused her to jump almost out of the water. Kat shivered and went back to her hair, but the room felt different now than it had before. She glanced around and eyed the shadows suspiciously, but saw nothing out of order. As she washed her hair, though, there was a splash in one of the far-off corners of the room. Her eyes grew huge and she sunk low beneath the water; the only thing still visible was her eyes and her hair, yellow eyes luminescent above the dark water.

Then something wrapped around her waist and pulled her down. As she went down, she gasped and got a mouthful of iron-tasting water, and she lost her breath. Kat began to flail wildly, and managed to strike her attacker in the face – she felt a mouth full of teeth, surrounded by hair. Then she was released, and she went straight up. She surfaced and spat the water from her mouth so she could take a long breath to fill her lungs, and then she flipped around and backpedaled to the rock wall of the bathhouse. Kat took another breath and watched the surface of the water carefully –

"BOO!" A pale blur came up in front of her, and Kat screamed like she was only a thousand years old. She flailed and swam sideways to get away, but was interrupted by the sound of tiny, tinkling laughter. She paused and looked behind her, and saw a miniature person floating on the surface of the water and giggling madly. The person was vaguely familiar, and so was the laughter. . .

"Gailexie?" Kat swam closer and recognized her tiny ambusher. Gailexie Fizztwiggle was what was called a 'gnome' – her head touched the top of Kat's knees just barely when she was standing. She studied the arcane arts, specifically fire magic, and was a very jolly young gnome. Kat had run into her during her stay in Auberdine. . .the gnome had gotten lost in the strange town, and Kat had been able to guide her back to the inn. Over the short time she had been there, the two had become good friends, and had a few rousing debates over the rightness of using arcane magic. ". . .I'm glad to see you, but. . .what are you doing here?"

"Weeeell, there was a delegation of leaders comin' over to shee you elfies, and they wanted a whole bunch of extra people to come along and get ushed to the city and people. I was hoping I'd get to shee you, so I assed a druid in Darnarses where you might be, and they told me you were probably shomewhere out here." Gailexie slurred before she giggled again. "Looksh like you've been hard at work for shure!" The small mage kicked back and started floating on her back, brown hair fluttering in the water around her tiny face. "I like these bathhoushesh. . .ish a good idea. . ."

Kat stared for a moment as she deciphered the slurring words, and then she made a face. "You're drunk again, aren't you?"

"As a drowned fish!"

". . .Fish can't drown. They live in water."

"Ezackly!" Gail splashed gleefully for a moment and then she dove beneath the water. It only took her a few seconds to come back up sputtering. "I'b gotd wadder in by nose!"

Kat buried her face in her hand. "_What an interesting way to end the day. . .drunken gnomes. . ." _She muttered under her breath in Darnassian before speaking to her gnomish companion. "Come on, Gail, we need to go to the inn soon. Just let me wash my hair, okay?"

"Yeesh, ma'am – ooh wait, I can washes you hair! Jush' hold shtill. . ." Gailexie's eyes rolled around for a minute before focusing on Kat, and then a blue glow began to coalesce around her fingers. Kat could feel a slight chill creeping into the water, and her eyes widened.

"Wait, Gail – no, don't –" She was too late. A bolt of frosty water flew at her and doused her in icy cold liquid that washed her hair clean. "You'll freeze the water around you. . ." Kat sighed and stared down the drunken arcanist who floated in a frozen ring of ice.

"Tada! Hairs wash-ed! Hmm, wash is a funny word. . .I wondersh what the etymology of it ish. . ." Gailexie looked down at the ice that ringed her waist and shrugged. "I can fix it!" This time, her fingers started glowing a fiery red, and Kat felt the water heat up noticeably. Instead of speaking and trying to stop the inebriated gnome, she just ducked and dove to the bottom. After a few seconds, a wave of heat passed over her and the water grew much warmer. Then Kat surfaced and sighed at her friend again.

"Well, my hair is rinsed now. . ." Kat muttered as she swam over to Gail and picked up the giggly woman. "Gail, what did you mean about people getting used to the city?"

"Oh, wells, -" she hiccupped, "the elves and dwarvses and gnomes and hoomans are all friends, so they needa get to know each uvver, right?" Another hiccup, followed by a huge burp that made Kat pinch her nose. "So they's a bunch of dorfs and humans and stuff in Darndonkeys right now! You people got some _weird _buildings, woman!"

"Indeed. What, exactly, are gnomish buildings like?" Kat asked as she dressed and looked around for Gailexie's clothes. She found them at the other end of the pool, half in the water and half out, and the shirt conspicuously missing. For that part, she ended up substituting the towel she meant to dry her hair with.

"Well, there's lots of metal, and smart stuff, basically. My workshop is a bount'ful place, full up with cogernoms and gyrochronatoms and all manner of technological wizzbangs! Speakin' of wizzbangs, there's this one cute engineer I got my eye on; you think he'd like this shirt you's lendin' me?" Gail babbled as Kat dressed her. When she started talking about wizzbangs, she tugged on the makeshift shirt and eyed it critically, as if it was some piece of fashion she had seen the queen of Ironforge in.

"Maybe. Why don't you like night elven buildings?" Kat asked another question as she almost dragged the tiny drunk out of the bathhouse and down the street to the inn. As they entered the inn, the innkeeper raised a (handsome, Kat noted) eyebrow at the small woman. A little simple sign language managed to explain the situation, and Kat continued with her dragging of the gnome.

"Coz. . .coz they're all _leafy. _Leafses does not belong in buildins', not unless they're on, y'know, like plants. Or robots. Robots are great, you know? I love robots. Do you think I could be a robot? Or build one?"

Kat nodded and somehow managed to get Gailexie into the comparatively huge bed in the inn room as the little woman chattered. How it was that Gail got so. . .unaware of what was happening to her when she was drunk was a truly a mystery. As the mage continued to talk, Kat reached into the tiny bag of medicine stashed in the corner of every inn room and mixed a simple sleeping draught that she disguised in a glass of cheap wine from downstairs. Gail hadn't even noticed when she left the room for the wine. . . "Gailexie, care for a drink?"

"Oh, yesh!" Gail grabbed the cup and drank it quickly before slamming it down. "Mmm, that. . .shtuff. . .is gud. You likezzzzzzz. . ." The draught effected her almost immediately; the dose had been for a night elf, and though it wasn't lethal, the more there was the faster it worked, so it had worked its magic on the tiny body.

Kat sighed at the snoring gnome and left to go to her own room. There, she finally dried her hair and brushed it, sapphire waves falling over her shoulder gracefully. "I wonder. . ." she murmured as she slipped out of her clothes to sleep. "Why exactly _does _she get so drunk?" She lay there and snuggled into the silky sheets and thought about her day. It had been an interesting day, and it was great to see Byancie and Gail. Perhaps she'd run into _– Nat, her mind whispered, maybe you'll find her – _some other people she knew tomorrow. . .


End file.
